


In the Dark of Night

by stellarmeadow



Series: Season 4 Codas/Missing Scenes [15]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Coda, Episode Related, Episode Tag, M/M, episode 415
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 04:05:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1252132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellarmeadow/pseuds/stellarmeadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve's got a lot of things he needs to get off his chest. So why will none of them come out?</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Dark of Night

**Author's Note:**

> This came to me a little easier (and darker) than I expected. Title is from INXS's [By My Side](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CXUcihuVJc) which I didn't realize until after I wrote this fits really well, in both lyrics and tone. 
> 
> Spoilers for 415! You have been warned!

Steve stared out the kitchen window, enveloped in the dark, watching the waves hit the beach in the moonlight. He tried to match his breathing to the sound of the ocean, a technique he used often to calm his nerves, but it wasn't working. Nothing had worked. 

He'd tried swimming, yoga, even meditation, but nothing could quiet the thoughts racing through his brain. The house was too big, too empty with Catherine away on more Reserve duty. Though these days, even when she was there it still felt empty. He wondered if that was part of why she was gone more and more, or if it was that she already knew what he hadn't yet found the words to say to her.

_I know you got things you're keeping inside._

Grover's words, so perceptive, though Steve wondered if he had any idea just what those things were, or only that they were there. Because God knew there was a lot of shit from his past that it took a certain kind of person to understand was there. Too much, he thought, sometimes, and yet he couldn't imagine his life having gone any other way. 

And then there was Danny.

_You gotta get those things off your chest, or they're gonna press the air right outta you._

Grover had hit the nail on the head there, too. The things Steve wasn't saying about Danny, to Danny, they were enough to suffocate Steve if he thought about them all at once. Not that Steve wasn't glad for the cease fire he and Danny had had going since the night Steve had all but fallen apart on Danny's doorstep. They were themselves again, at least on the surface. 

And if the things bubbling under the surface, like lava threatening to explode, made Steve's digs a little sharper, made Danny hit a little lower below the belt when they argued, that was to be expected. 

_Your mother, she couldn't even get divorced like a normal human being. She had to pretend she was dead._

For all that Steve had protested, Danny had a point. Steve's inability to be able to have a relationship, let alone end one, seemed genetic. His mother may have needed to fake her death to save them, but she didn't give her husband and kids a chance to go with her. 

Maybe he should call her and ask for tips on how to fake his death rather than talk to Catherine about ending things.

Of course, that would only work if he knew how to find his mother in the first place.

Yet another relationship he really didn't want to think about. He didn't want to think about anything, in fact. Wanted his brain to be free of all the pressure that seemed to be bearing down on it from every direction.  
Even in his sleep he wasn't free of it--images and words bombarding him, fragmented and disorienting, his brain seemingly wandering from Annapolis to Afghanistan to Hawaii with no logic to the timeline, only to the themes. Failure. Loss. Death. 

A veritable greatest hits of his worst nightmares, all night long on repeat.

_You gotta get those things off your chest, or they're gonna press the air right outta you._

In daylight, those things he needed off his chest were increasingly tied to Danny. Steve needed to say things to him that he'd never had the words for. Never needed them. Or wanted them, if he was honest. 

Because those words, those feelings, they brought nothing but heartache and loss. Even Danny's parents couldn't keep it together, and to hear him tell it those two were a paragon of marital bliss. Or something. And now even they couldn't manage happily ever after. 

Losing battles was getting harder by the day. And the mere idea of losing Danny....

Steve's chest tightened, and he closed his eyes, fighting the panic. He gripped the sink, anchoring himself in the present, in the cold ceramic of the basin, the sound of the waves. He hadn't lost Danny. Danny was fine, just down the road with his mother and Grace. Everything was fine. 

The panic receded, and Steve opened his eyes, though it was still another minute before he released his death grip on the sink. His chest still felt tight, but it was better. Another few minutes and he'd be okay.

His phone buzzed, and he fished it out of his pocket to check the screen to find a text from Danny. _You awake?_

Steve toyed with the idea of not responding for all of about three seconds before he sighed and sent back a yes. He turned around, his back to the window, and leaned on the sink while he waited a minute before the phone rang.

Steve picked up immediately. "What's up?" he asked.

"Grace...." Danny's voice was soft, like he was trying to keep from waking up the house, but Steve knew that hesitation, knew there was more to come, that Danny was just trying to find the words. "I was tucking her in tonight, and you know what she told me?"

"What?"

"I apologized," Danny said, "for having to put her through telling her that Rachel and I were getting divorced. And she said she knew it was hard for me, because she heard me crying in my room after we told her."

Steve sighed, closing his eyes. "Oh, man."

"The things we put our kids through...I mean, we think they're kids, and that they won't remember it or it'll be a hazy memory that they'll wonder if it was a dream, but that's not true. It is as hard on a small child as it is on a grown man to hear that your parents are splitting up." 

He could hear the misery in Danny's voice, and he wanted to be there to put his arms around Danny and tell him it would all be okay. Or to invite Danny to come over, let his mother watch Grace for a little while. 

But he couldn't. Because the two of them alone at night with no excuses, no Grace sleeping down the hall, or team members who might show up or call any second, was not a good combination at the moment. There'd either be sex, or a fight. And neither of them could handle either right now. 

If Danny would just get past his issue with Steve and Cath not being officially over yet, things would be different. 

Of course, if Steve could make that official, things would be much different. Permanently. 

But then there was no permanence to anything--hadn't this whole conversation proved that? 

"You okay?" Steve asked, eyes open again, staring through the dark of the kitchen into the even darker living room. He probably should have turned on the lights when he got home.

"No." He heard Danny's hands scrubbing against the whiskers on his face. "My parents are getting a divorce. And apparently my daughter knows how to handle these things better than I do."

"Grace has had a few years to see that it's going to be okay," Steve said. "You'll get there."

Danny huffed. "I don't want to get there." 

"Neither did Grace."

"I know." He heard the deeper breath on the other end of the line that said Danny was getting to the point of being okay for tonight, at least. "The one good thing that came out of that conversation," he said, "apart from that my daughter is apparently wiser than me, is that it reminded me what it was like. How hard it was to be on my mom's end of it. To have to tell that to my child."

"So you gonna cut her some slack tomorrow?"

"Maybe." 

Steve could picture the start of a grin he knew was on Danny's face, just from his tone. "Are you gonna be okay?" he asked. Because as bad of an idea as it was for them to be alone, he was willing to try it if Danny needed him.

"Yeah. For tonight anyway." 

"Good."

Danny cleared his throat. "Thanks."

"Anytime. Night, Danno."

"Night."

He heard the line click, but it was a moment before Steve lowered the phone from his cheek and put it away.

_You gotta get those things off your chest, or they're gonna press the air right outta you._

Grover was right. 

Too bad Steve had so many things to get off his chest he didn't even know where to start sifting through them to start unloading.

\---  
END

**Author's Note:**

> Want to learn more about me and my writing? Visit my page at <http://www.jamiemeadowswrites.com/>


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